As Tehran continues to make alarming progress on its nuclear program, the United States appears not to have made a firm decision on how to respond. Israel, which has already demonstrated an ability to send its air force to strike in Iran, is bracing for possible military action. Brig. Gen. (res.) Professor Jacob Nagel, former acting national security adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and ex-head of Israel’s National Security Council, who is today a senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JNS on Thursday that the situation regarding the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program is alarming for two reasons.
First, he said, are “the Iranian ambitions and behavior,” and second is the unwillingness of the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) nuclear watchdog and the Europeans to confront Iran over its nuclear progress, while the United States, he assessed, has yet to make a final decision on the matter.“I very much hope Israel will succeed in clarifying the situation as it truly is,” said Nagel. “The problem is that some in Israel have also not yet internalized the situation, because they have gotten used to it over 20 years.”
Iran has significantly increased its stockpile of near weapons grade uranium, enough to produce six nuclear weapons, according to an IAEA report prepared for next week’s meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of governors and seen by Reuters. (Read More)
